Cape Town has become the call centre capital of South Africa, attracting as many as 75% of all ‘business process outsourcing and off-shoring’ (BPO&O) investments in the country.

This includes the call centre or contact centre industry, as well as other business processes that are outsourced or ‘off-shored’, including back office administration.

According to CallingtheCape, the rise in formal agent employment in the sector by 9 000 since 2003 is estimated to translate into as many as 35 000 new employment opportunities in the Cape Metropol. Call centres are located across the region, from the CBD to Bellville, Claremont and Century City.

A total of 2 371 people now work exclusively on offshore programmes in Cape Town, up from about 100 in 2003. This accounts for more than 50% of the total ‘offshore’ employees in South Africa.

Funded by the City of Cape Town, the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and BPO&O companies, CallingtheCape was established five years ago to ensure that Cape Town secured most of the 12 million service jobs that are expected to migrate to the developed world until 2015.

In its report to the City’s Portfolio Committee for Economic, Social Development and Tourism, CallingtheCape says that the industry is now worth R2,5 billion to R3,3 billion per annum to the Western Cape economy, contributing 2,4% of gross domestic product to the region.

Cape Town now has a reputation as one of the highest quality and lowest risk offshore locations for BPO&O and CallingtheCape is cited by 90% of investors as a major positive influence on their investment decisions.

Since 2004, the organisation has directly facilitated 30 new investment deals from business giants such as Barclays, Shell, Carphone Warehouse, Budget Insurance, Lufthansa, Dialogue Group and Close Brothers.

In total, these investments are worth over R500 million and account for R800 million in annual spending, 50% of which is made up of staff salaries.

During the past financial year, the City of Cape Town contributed over R1,8 million to CallingtheCape’s total budget of R7,6 million. Other sources of funding were from Province, the private sector, and learnerships and bursaries. RI million of our contribution is specifically directed to supporting a Call Centre training to develop skills for young people that seek to enter this industry and also enhance skills of existing agents.

“The BPO&O industry presents one of the greatest opportunities for large scale job creation in Cape Town for unemployed, previously disadvantaged youth,” says Cllr Simon Grindrod, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic, Social Development and Tourism.

"Our continued support of this industry will be targeted at addressing constraints to investment and its global competitiveness. In this regard skills development and public transport are major priorities. There are ongoing programs to meet these challenges".

“The City of Cape Town has derived huge socio-economic benefits from the multi-million rand investments that CallingtheCape has helped to foster. Our ongoing support of the job creation efforts in this sector will be vital in unlocking its true potential - which could create as many as an additional 20 000 new jobs in the next three years,” he says.